Wednesday, January 15, 2025
1/15/2025
SUMMARY This proposal requests funds to acquire a high-performance computing (HPC) cluster with extensive data storage and Graphics Co-Processor (GCP) capabilities for the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) to support artificial intelligence (AI) based research integrating institutional laboratory, clinical, imaging and genomic data resources. MUSC is dramatically expanding its “raw materials'' for AI research: electronic health records (EHR) data from an expanding (now statewide) healthcare system; clinical and research-based imaging data stored in a common format in a new PACS (picture archiving and communications system); and deep genomic data (~100,000 over the next four years). These data create a unique opportunity along with a need for advanced HPC capabilities to expand existing research projects using these data resources. AI and specifically machine learning has led to groundbreaking biomedical studies, but requires HPC, robust graphics processing units (GPUs) and large accessible storage. Currently, a number of NIH-funded investigators at MUSC are performing research utilizing big data and machine learning, capturing massive amounts of data. Unfortunately, these highly valuable data sets are disjointed and siloed due to a lack of an adequate, unified data storage solution that can facilitate translational linking of these data sets. Growing unmet computational need is also a common theme among these NIH-funded investigators, particularly in areas of research involving high-volume, high-resolution image acquisition. Currently, inadequate access to high performance computing and the necessary AI infrastructure limit their ability to apply techniques such as deep learning to unlock a more complete value from these data sets. These data sets are often of a size and complexity such that it is impractical to transmit, store and compute upon them using cloud resources, requiring local HPC “instruments” to perform the computational tasks required. Building upon an existing MUSC institutional initiatives, proposal adds AI computational infrastructure to the socio-technical resources available at MUSC and to pilot level computational resources. The proposed HPC cluster will unify these efforts by providing common data storage with ample and accessible computing power for sophisticated AI techniques (e.g. deep learning) to exploit the potential synergies among data sets and facilitate translation efforts. The HPC cluster, while dedicated to research, will reside in the MUSC Data Center which serves the combined MUSC health and research enterprise.
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